NBA commissioner Adam Silver defended returning the All-Star Game to Charlotte, saying he hopes the game could set an example of “what equality looks like to a community” and that “the state will follow.” Jeff ChiuAP

NBA commissioner Adam Silver defended returning the All-Star Game to Charlotte, saying he hopes the game could set an example of “what equality looks like to a community” and that “the state will follow.” Jeff ChiuAP

Asked if the law was changed sufficiently, Silver answered, “The law was changed.... They made incremental progress. And I felt, in part ... there is a role that the league can play in demonstrating what equality looks like to a community.”

By taking the All-Star weekend back to Charlotte, Silver said the league can set an example for North Carolina.

“We can ... go in and say ‘this is what it looks like, to operate ... under a set of egalitarian principles. And this is what it looks like to be non-discriminatory,’ in this case, against the LGBTQ community,” Silver told reporters. “My hope is by setting that example, we can unify people. And that the state will follow.”

Silver made his remarks in a question-and-answer session before Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers.

The league and other organizations had denounced HB2 as discriminatory against LGBT individuals. Dubbed the “bathroom bill,” HB2 included a requirement that required transgender individuals to use public restrooms that matched the sex listed on their birth certificates.

In March, Gov. Roy Cooper signed a compromise bill, House Bill 142, replacing HB2 but preventing local governments from passing anti-discrimination ordinances for three years. Many argued that the measure doesn’t go far enough in addressing non-discrimination – the state still doesn’t have any non-discrimination policies that protect the LGBTQ community.

Silver said that some progress is better than none.

... what’s that expression ... that sport imitates life? I think sometimes that life can imitate sport.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver on how the All-Star Game returning to Charlotte can serve as an example of equality

“I respect those who feel we may have made the wrong decision, but I disagree factually for those who say that the change in the law was not an improvement, or some even said was worse,” Silver said. “The fact is that under the change in law in North Carolina, birth certificates were no longer required to use restrooms. And it also permitted us to take our All-Star Game to Charlotte and set a set of rules, a set of principles in which we were going to operate under in that state.

“Again ... these are close calls for the league. But I think ultimately ... what’s that expression ... that sport imitates life? I think sometimes that life can imitate sport.”